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continued Feature Storywhile also disrupting putting surfacequality for the least amount of time.Therefore we need to examine datain Tables 1 and 2 to make someconclusions.• The least disruptive treatment interms of percent surface removal(Treatment 2, 10%) healedrelatively quickly (32 days) andreduced thatch/mat OM to anacceptable level of 3.8% afterthree years. However, the factthat we lost ground between 2009(3.4%) and 2010 (3.8%) maypoint to this practice not beingsufficient in the long term.• Verticutting alone each springand fall (Treatment 3) resulted inthe second-fastest recovery of anytreatment (27.5 days), but failedto significantly reduce OM to alevel below the untreated.• Treatment 4 resulted in the fewestaverage days of disruption overthe season (22 days), but finished2010 with the same amount of OM(4.5%) as the topdressed control.Verticutting and small-tine coringmay heal fast, but appear to beinsufficient for OM dilution.• Using large tines (0.5" id) at aclose spacing in both spring andfall each year (19.6% surfaceremoval, Treatment 6) workedbest in terms of final OM at 3.1%,but required approximately 5to 15 extra days each season forrecovery, relative to the small-tineand/or verticutting treatments.• Finally, being ultra-aggressiveby removing 26.6% surface area(Treatment 7) per year did notwork in this trial. Recovery timewas significantly delayed, withoutachieving greater OM dilutionrelative to treatments that removed15% to 20% surface area.SummaryOur three years of data indicate whatmost golf course superintendentsalready know: “There is more thanone way to skin a cat.” Various coringapproaches can be mixed and matchedwith verticutting and consistent sandtopdressing to achieve the goal ofOM dilution. Annual removal of 15%to 20% surface area should almostalways keep you on the safe side incentral Virginia. While verticuttingalone provides fast healing, our dataindicate that it needs to be combinedwith at least one annual 10% coringfor adequate results. cAcknowledgementsMany thanks to the following peoplewho contributed in the completion ofthis project: Dan Taylor, Golf CourseSuperintendent at IndependenceGolf Club; Chris Bassett, Smith Turfand Irrigation; Kehua Wang and DerikCataldi, Virginia Tech graduate students;Brandon Horvath, Ph.D.,Assistant Professor at The Universityof Tennessee-Knoxville; JasonHenderson, Assistant Professor atThe University of Connecticut.20| VIRGINIA TURFGRASS JOURNAL January/February 2012 www.vaturf.org